Korean Job Discussion Forums

[MollyBloom]

My husband and I went to Shinhan to open a joint account today and were told we couldn't. Called a friend and he said another foreign couple he knows couldn't do the same (I don't know which bank they went to). I'm wondering if this is a bank-specific rule, something reserved for Korean nationals and/or foreigners with a Korean spouse, or not done here at all.

[Mr. Peabody]

Foreigners + joints = Do not mix...lol

However, my k-spouse and I have a combined accout at KB bank. At least I think it is. We each have ATM cards that access it. It maybe only in one name (mine) and they just gave us two cards for all I know.

What exactly do you want to do with this account?

[ttompatz]

[MollyBloom]

[MollyBloom]

[ttompatz]

[big_fella1]

Actually Korea's real name transaction laws does not allow for joint accounts. The account must belong to one real person.

[s.tickbeat]

To be fair, it wasn't long ago that women in the USA, Canada, etc. couldn't do any of those things, either. It's why being older and unmarried was such a disaster, as was widowhood. THAT didn't change until fairly recently.

[prideofidaho]

MollyBloom, I was told the same thing. My partner and I (we aren't married) tried to get a joint account to bolster our De Facto / Common Law claims in our home countries and to facilitate De Facto / Common Law temp visas in our home countries. The bank said it's just not done. They said we could get one but it would't make any practical sense because we would both have to come to the bank to access the account. They said the joint accounts were more for businesses and not husbands and wives or whatever. We decided it just didn't make sense for us.

Does this stamp account thing where you get two cards work for unmarried couples?

[mmstyle]

Just an FYI, because I went through he same thing with my husband at KEB. I asked my Korean coworker about it, and she said that they work around they use (which doesn't work for everything) is that her husband signed some paper which allows her to do all the internet banking on his account. I hate using internet banking in Korea (mostly because I just haven't figured it out) so we just have separate accounts. It's a pain, but we can't even be on each other's accounts in our home countries, so we're pretty much getting used to it.

[trying2getthere]

My husband and I went through this when we first came here. We've been married and with joint accounts for 4 years prior to coming here, so having separate accounts just seemed silly and inconvenient. We took our boss with us to the bank and were issued a second ATM/bank card,